


Rain Dogs

by thegreatgatesy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Alcohol, Bars, Blood, Car Accidents, Castiel/Dean - Freeform, Cigarettes, Ghost Stories, Harvelle's Roadhouse, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Jukeboxes, M/M, Ohio, Rain, Spooky, Thunderstorms, Tom Waits, WIP, spoilers and tw in tags!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-04-20 02:42:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4770518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreatgatesy/pseuds/thegreatgatesy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a shitty little bar off of a shitty little road in Ohio that only the locals really know about. Dean Winchester has been working there for eight years (and visiting for a lot longer) and it's always been the same-Shania Twain and Garth Brooks on the old jukebox in the corner; Jo, Ellen and Bobby dicking around in the kitchen; camo-clad customers drinking Miller Lite and Mike's Hard at the bar; raucous laughter and rowdy dancing. </p><p>            But on this stormy Thursday the bar is empty. The old back roads are washing away, and no one is coming into the Roadhouse.</p><p>            Until someone does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Huddle a Doorway

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, gentlereaders! This is my first officially posted SPN/Destiel fic- though I posted lots of Buffy fic under a different name when I was a teen. 
> 
> I would love any and all feedback; this is a non-abandoned WIP, will be updated eventually. I have it planned out to be about five chapters, but who knows?

There’s a shitty little bar off of a shitty little road in Ohio that only the locals really know about. Dean Winchester has been working there for eight years (and visiting for a lot longer) and it's always been the same-Shania Twain and Garth Brooks on the old jukebox in the corner; Jo, Ellen and Bobby dicking around in the kitchen; camo-clad customers drinking Miller Lite and Mike's Hard at the bar; raucous laughter and rowdy dancing. 

He’s never seen it this empty- but then he’s never seen it rain like this. We’re talking post-apocalyptic, movie quality torrents, the kind of rain that actually pours from the sky, sloughing so hard to warrant the worst kind of flooding. He’s looking at it all through the dusty window during his 5 minute (turned 10 minute, turned 20 minute, because fuck, not like anyone’s around anyway) break. The last of the muddy patrons ducked out by ten o’clock, hoping to get home before the dirt roads washed away proper.

True to form, though, the others are noisy in the kitchen and on a normal day he’d be in there with them, but what kind of a person would he be if he didn’t take the chance to stare pensively out a window on a day like this?

He figures ‘Hell, make it 30’ and lights another cigarette. He’s in the tiny dry storage room, leaning close to the window he’d cracked to let the smoke out (because Bobby would talk to his taxidermy friend about a Deanskin rug if he caught him smoking in his bar). He’s thinking about his brother today. Sammy had some big test that Dean definitely couldn’t help him with, and though he’d tried to convince him a.) he didn’t need help because he was smart as hell and b.) Dean didn’t know shit about multi-party litigation beyond what he might have learned watching Judge Judy so he wouldn’t be any help anyway- Sammy was still nervous and moderately upset that Dean couldn’t visit him last weekend to help him cram. He’s looking out at the flooding dirt roads and thinking that fuck, he might not even make it out this weekend to celebrate his inevitably perfect score because the damned roads might not even exist anymore by then.

Dean hears Jo’s unnaturally heavy footsteps coming around the corner and stamps the remainder of his cigarette out against the window frame, trying to wipe the smudge away with his thumb as much as he can because Jo would totally tell on him.

“Customer!” Jo trills.

“Why don’t you take this one, Babe?”

“I’m busy. Don’t call me ‘Babe’.” She spins around and stomps out again, pausing to yell back over her shoulder. “And stop smoking back here! You’re gonna get killed.”

Dean makes a face at her back, can hear her laughing with her mom. He sighs and stretches his whole body (he feels too old for 30. Stiff.), pasting on a smile to charm the piss (or, okay, tips) out of some unfortunate soul.

He comes out of the back room to the bar the same way he has 97 thousand times, looks out over the floor that hasn’t changed at all since the first time he visited at age twelve, dragging Sam behind him under strict instructions from his father to ‘take Sammy to Uncle Bobby and you’d better watch out for him while I’m gone’.

For a minute Dean doesn’t see anyone else in the bar and is about to go put Jo in a headlock for his troubles when he hears the jukebox in the corner kickstart, a man's raspy voice thundering out. 

“Hellooo?” Dean leans heavily onto the bar, feet nearly leaving the ground, so he can peer around the corner to see the jukebox. 

He sees a man, then, looking curiously at the jukebox, head tilted to the side. 

He’s sopping wet. 

“Hey! You come all the way here in this grossness to see me?”

The man turns to look at Dean, and it’s clear his charm has gone completely flat. His head still tilted to the side, still dripping muddy water onto the hardwood floors (Jo is gonna be pissed when her mom makes her clean that), he walks towards Dean at the bar. 

“Haha. Sorry. Can I get you something? A hot cup of coffee maybe?” 

The man nods, and looks awkwardly down at the puddles his shoes are squeaking out. 

“Let me see if I can get you a towel too, I’ll be right back.”

Dean ducks back into the hallway, back into the storeroom, where it still smells of mentholated nicotine, and rummages around in a box of rags. He’s sure he’s seen an old towel in here, waiting to be torn up into a bar rag…

He pulls it out and checks it for horrendous stains. Just a bit of blotchiness from bleach, looks like. 

“Hey, so this may not smell the greatest but I promise it’s cleanish, and at least it’s dry. I still gotta get your coffee, but-”

The man in the wet coat is gone. 

Dean comes out from around the bar, thinking the man has gone back around to the jukebox, but he isn't there.

“Hmm.” There are still puddles on the floor, so Dean assumes he ducked into the restroom and goes to the door and gives it a rap. “I’m just gonna leave this out here, okay? It’s not gonna do much, but it’s something.”

He hangs the towel on a hook outside the door and turns to go get his coffee, but something seems wrong. He knocks again and calls out, but there’s no response. 

Dean has ushered more than a few overly-intoxicated patrons out of the small restroom, so he knows people can cram themselves into the small space- this guy hadn’t exactly been stumbling around, but Dean had also met many a sober-looking person who puked on his shoes, so he knows better than to assume.

“Hello?” He raps on the door again, then puts his hand on the handle. “I’m gonna come in, dude, you okay?”

He notices as he turns the knob (freely, it isn’t locked) that the light is off in the bathroom and has a moment’s hesitation before throwing the door open

 

to find that no one is inside. 

 

He frowns and flips on the light switch as if it will make the man appear, and as he does the lights burn out- from Bobby’s swearing in the back, it seems all over the bar. 

“Son of a bitch,” Dean mutters and stalks to the bar, hoping to get to the back and find the fusebox without destroying his shin on some stupid shelf.

He gets four steps away from the bathroom door and slams bodily - and hard - into someone. 

His heart plays ‘Rock the Casbah’ against his ribs. “B-Bobby?” He swallows, and a flash of lightning right outside lightens the bar to daylight levels for a split second. 

The Soaked Man is standing with his nose an inch away from Dean’s own. 

He’s so close Dean’s eyes cross. He smells like wet leaves, and Dean now notices a trickle of blood running steadily from his nose. 

“I need help,” the man’s voice sounds rough and reminds him for an odd moment of the rock tumbler Sammy had when he was younger- you put the rocks in the tub, put the tub in the dryer, and the rocks come out smooth and polished. 

“I’m sorry?" The stranger's eyes seem to glow blue when the bar is hit with another flash of lightning. He's staring at Dean openly. "What’s your name, man?”

“I am Castiel. I need help. Please.” The voice is urgent, coming from the dark in front of Dean. 

“Anything you need, Cassty… Cas. What’s wrong?”

There is silence in front of him until suddenly and without warning, the lights come back on, jukebox in the corner blaring that raspy old Tom Waits song again. 

Cas is gone again, just a puddle left in front of Dean.


	2. A Broken Clock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update, things have been absolutely ridiculous for the tail end of '15. :/ 
> 
> Smoother paths ahead though, right? Well, for us at least.

“Okay. What the fuck?!” Dean is trying to get his breathing back in check, and as soon as he does he calls for Jo, stomping back into the kitchen.

“What’s wrong with you? You afraid of the dark now?”

“This isn’t funny. Tell your friend to get the fuck out. I’m done, good prank. I’ll be in the back.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Did that guy even order anything?” “Joanna Beth.” He is using his Serious Voice, which wrinkles Jo’s brow. She whirls around to head back towards the bar, and Bobby and Ellen turn conspicuously back to cleaning up for the night.

Dean hears Jo talking at the bar and thinks that she’s taking this stupid joke way too far

until he hears a raspy man’s voice saying his name. 

He pushes back out into the bar with a furrowed brow to see the same man, still dripping, sitting at the bar and chatting with Jo. The jukebox is playing that song again. 

“Hey. You back again? You kind of disappeared back there.”

“Yes. I’m here - I would like that towel if it’s still available.” His nose is no longer openly bleeding, but there are small copper flakes around the edges and the bridge looks a bit red and tender.

“Sure dude, here you go. Coffee’s done too, I’ll bring a cup out for you.”

Jo rolls her eyes and brushes past him so they have to awkwardly squeeze into the back together again. 

“I don’t know if you’re playing some kind of trick or you’re having a mental breakdown. Do you need me to cover for you while you nap or something?”

Dean sighs and rubs the back of his neck. “Nah, don’t worry about it. He must have just run out to get something from his car or something, and with the lights…”

“Dean Winchester was a scaredy cat and took it out on me; not the first time, but it’s never not funny.” She winks at him and he punches her lightly on the arm with a ‘yeah, yeah’ and goes to grab Cas’s coffee. 

When he carries the coffee service (‘Don’t just slam a damned cup of joe on someone you idjit, not everyone wants it like tar ‘cause you do!’), Cas’s head is buried in his hands, his elbows are resting on the bar, and he is dripping onto the paperboard coaster in front of him. 

“Here ya go!’ Dean goes for quiet but chipper as he puts the mug onto a drier coaster and moves it towards Cas, sitting the little box of fake creamer and fake sugars next to it. “You doin’ all right?”

“My head…”

“Migraine? Sammy, he’s my little brother, he gets them all the time. Sometimes the caffeine helps him, you should give that coffee a try.”

Sometimes on this particular shitty little road in Ohio, there are logging trucks that whiz by (the road is honestly too narrow for such large trucks, but it forms a nice little shortcut between highways when you know where you’re going - it can cut off a whole 45 minutes in traffic). You hear them before you see them, and the locals know it’s really in their best interest to hug the shoulder. 

And inside this particular shitty little bar, when one goes past it quickly enough and with little enough care, you hear the rumble and then feel the rumble - a miniature earthquake that has cost Bobby and Ellen a few mugs and pint glasses.

And on this particularly shitty day, Dean hears the truck, sees the lights peer around the corner, and is distracted from the ambient rumbling by a bizarre reaction from the lone patron. 

Cas jumps as though he’s been shot, arm darting out where he was reaching for his steaming mug and instead shoving it directly at Dean in what can be assumed is an accident, though it’s hard to tell with no apology and a decided lack of weird man sitting in front of him. 

Of course the lights flicker off again and Dean would be lying if he said he didn’t shout (he would later blame it on the surely 2nd degree burns on his thighs when Jo questions him).

This time the jukebox is still playing, though it wouldn’t make sense with a blown fuse, and it’s still that Tom Waits song. Dean stumbles over in the darkness and unplugs it. His shoe skids over something on his way back to the bar and hears a crack. He reaches down to grab whatever it is and feels a pain quick and sharp in the fleshy tip of his middle finger. 

Swearing, he brings his hand to his mouth, tastes a tang of blood (not enough to be incredibly worried, but enough he should really throw a bandage on it). With his other hand he grabs for the offending object, more gingerly this time, and pulls a watch into the dim light cast from a dull porchlight still reaching into the foggy window in the door. It’s not an expensive watch, but not a totally cheap one; something with a solid band that you might find on sale at Macy’s and pick up on a whim (if watches were the kind of thing you treated yourself to). The face is shattered; the last fifteen minutes are totally unprotected except for a sharp shard pointed in the general direction of the eleven. The rest of the clock is rendered cryptic by the thickly spiderwebbing cracks. 

He frowns and squints, encourages his eyes to adjust to the dimness, and calls out for Bobby. 

“Hey Bobby you gonna flick that fuse?”

“What are you talkin about?”

“The fuse, Bobby. For the lights?”

Dean looks up as he reaches the bar, places the watch down, maneuvers around it, and opens the swinging door to the back. 

The kitchen is bathed in light and sound, the radio still fizzling out some REO Speedwagon song in between mellow bursts of static. 

Dean is still blinking against the sudden brightness when he feels the door hit his hand, rubbing a fresh dull pain into his cut. It jolts him out of it enough to shake his head and turn to open the door behind him again

where it’s light and bright and filled with that fucking Tom Waits song, coming from the jukebox he knows he just unplugged. The watch is still on the corner of the bar. 

“Bobby I ain’t feeling so great.” Dean thinks kind of wildly of Bobby yelling at him for mumbling all the time as a teenager and clears his throat painfully. “I think I’m going to head to bed? If that’s okay? Mostly dead anyway.” He knows Bobby is staring at him, and he’s pretty sure Jo and Ellen are too, but he looks over his shoulder to make sure because he’s a glutton for punishment, and what better punishment is there than seeing your family give you A Look like you’re crazy?

“Sure thing, son. Get some rest - try to at least, okay?”

“Yeah.”


End file.
